JAY CURRIE has thoughts on preparation for avian flu. Once again, it’s worth noting that those preparations are also likely to be useful in the event of other outbreaks.

I have related thoughts on technology and preparedness over at GlennReynolds.com.

A LOOK AT LAWBLOGGERS in The New York Times.

IS THE MIERS NOMINATION IN TROUBLE? She’s polling like Robert Bork, and she’s flubbing easy questions.

UPDATE: Miers’ defenders will have to do better than “shut up.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Virginia Postrel has lots of interesting things to say about Miers — just keep scrolling.

MAJOR JOHN TAMMES, fresh back from New Orleans, has thoughts on the proper use of the National Guard.

IS IT A BLOG BOOM, or a blog bubble?

I THOUGHT EVERYONE KNEW that law librarians rock.

BETWEEN BOOK-WRITING AND OTHER PROJECTS, I’ve been exceptionally busy this fall. And though I’ve always viewed slow-cookers with some suspicion, I have to say that this All-Clad Slow Cooker, which my sister-in-law gave me for my birthday, rocks. I’ve used it several times a week, to make lamb stew (with Guinness), gumbo, spaghetti sauce, cornish game hens, etc. It’s a little weird to be preparing dinner at 8 a.m., but it’s pretty nice to get home at 5:30 or 6 and find it cooked, and the house smelling nice. At my brother’s recommendation (yes, we Reynolds men tend to be the cooks in our households) I got this cookbook, which rocks, too. (My sister-in-law gave me this cookbook, which has great recipes but most of them are kind of heavy on prep work; I prefer the “fix it and forget it” approach, most of the time.) I should have gotten one of these things years ago. (And my apologies for stepping on Bill Quick’s turf. . . .)

FROM PHOTO ANALYSIS TO VIDEO ANALYSIS.

PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE:

I have the distinct impression that the Democratic Party sees the liberal blogosphere as being inside the tent, while the Republican Party views the conservative blogosphere as being somewhere between an irrelevance and a minor nuisance. Maybe this is true, at least in part, because many prominent “conservative” bloggers (Andrew Sullivan, Glenn Reynolds, Stephen Green, and Eugene Volokh spring to mind) are not exactly stalwart Republican party loyalists but rather libertarians (or whatever) who put routinely put their principles ahead of party interests. Alternatively, maybe the Democrats have just decided to follow Lyndon Johnson’s advice about keeping your critics inside the tent peeing out rather than outside the tent peeing in.

I think he’s right. There’s no doubt that the GOP party apparat is less engaged with the blogosphere, overall, than the Democrats’.

THE DSCC SCANDAL reaches the New York Times.

RADLEY BALKO CELEBRATES M.A.D.D.’S 25TH ANNIVERSARY by calling them a bunch of prohibitionist twits:

Even MADD’s founder, Candy Lightner, has lamented that the organization has grown neo-prohibitionist in nature.

“[MADD has] become far more neo-prohibitionist than I had ever wanted or envisioned …,” Lightner is quoted as saying in an Aug. 6 story in the Washington Times. “I didn’t start MADD to deal with alcohol. I started MADD to deal with the issue of drunk driving,” she said.

Unfortunately, the tax-exempt organization has become so enmeshed with government it has nearly become a formal government agency. MADD gets millions of dollars in federal and state funding, and has a quasi-official relationship with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. In some jurisdictions, DWI defendants are sentenced to attend and pay for alcoholic-recovery groups sponsored by MADD. In many cities, MADD officials are even allowed to man sobriety checkpoints alongside police.

On the occasion of its 25th anniversary, perhaps its time Congress revisit the spigot of federal funding flowing to MADD, and consider revoking the organization’s tax-exempt status. Clearly, MADD isn’t the same organization it was 25 years ago. It has morphed into an anti-alcohol lobbying organization. There’s nothing wrong with that — it’s certainly within MADD’s and its supporters’ First Amendment rights.

But taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to subsidize them.

Indeed.

MORE THOUGHTS ON BUSH’S SPEECH here and, from Donald Sensing, here.

LARRY LESSIG ADVERTISES a Creative Commons fundraiser.

JONATHAN GEWIRTZ does a media compare and contrast.

LOTS MORE on the Oklahoma suicide bombing.

UPDATE: More here, too. Also here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: On the other hand, here’s a lengthy post casting doubt on the Islamic-terror angle.

MICHAEL YON HAS A NEW REPORT FROM MOSUL, with particular emphasis on how the Iraqi forces are doing. Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Westhawk compares Mosul with Ramadi and draws lessons.

MORE ON AVIAN FLU: No wonder Bush seemed so up-to-date at the press conference the other day.

ROB ANDERSON IN THE NEW REPUBLIC:

When it comes to the oppression of gays and lesbians in Muslim countries, gay activism hasn’t died; it never really existed. Gay activists have used two types of excuses to justify their failure to aggressively mobilize for the rights of gay Muslims–moral and strategic. The moral argument is that Americans are in no position to criticize Iranians on human rights–that it would be wrong to campaign too loudly against Iranian abuses when the United States has so many problems of its own. Then, there are two strategic rationales: that it is better to work behind the scenes to bring about change in Iran; and that gay rights groups should conserve their resources for domestic battles.

The strategic rationales are not especially compelling, but it is the moral argument that is particularly troubling, because it suggests that some gay and lesbian leaders feel more allegiance to the relativism of the contemporary left than they do to the universality of their own cause. Activists are more than willing to condemn the homophobic leaders of the Christian right for campaigning against gay marriage; but they are weary of condemning Islamist regimes that execute citizens for being gay. Something has gone terribly awry.

Indeed.

BOB CASEY IS NOW LEADING RICK SANTORUM by eighteen percent.